LeBron James' ultimate decision to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers may have not been a long time in the making, but Sports Illustrated's positioning to be the outlet to break the story was.
LeBron James didn't decide until Thursday that he wanted to come back to Cleveland
Deadspin.com reported that Lee Jenkins pitched the idea of James going a different route of announcing his second free-agent decision than his disastrous first announcement.
Several factors helped Jenkins secure James' approval.
Jenkins put SI in James' good graces in 2013 when he nominated the then-Miami Heat star for the magazine's Sportsman of the Year Award, Deadspin reported. The nomination touted James' charity efforts and talked about any lingering bitterness over "The Decision" in terms of "the rehabilitation is complete."
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Deadspin reported that the idea of redemption was critical to James' thought process.
" 'I think they trust him and by extension trust SI that we wouldn't turn this into a circus,' (SI managing editor Chris) Stone says of the James crew's decision to go with Jenkins. The negative reaction to airing The Decision on ESPN was clearly still a sore spot for James, so much so that he brought it up in his meeting with (Cavaliers owner Dan) Gilbert. Sports Illustrated was a more respectable outlet and had done right by James in the past. (It had done right by Jenkins, too, as it turned out. Earlier this year, Jenkins rebuffed a fairly serious courtship by Grantland. It's hard to see him scoring the LeBron story as a part of the ESPN machine.)"
James' camp came up with the idea of the first-person essay, Stone told the Wall Street Journal. That took place on July 5.
Stone told Deadspin that once James' handlers worked out the details with Jenkins, that the writer was afraid to talk about the process to anyone at SI.
"Lee was reluctant to share too much," Stone said to Deadspin, "with the understanding that it could have gone sideways at any minute."
Only six people on the SI staff saw the essay before it ran to prevent any chance of a leak. Deadspin reported that SI was going to use the first-person essay, regardless of whether it had the scoop. Time Inc. sports group editor Paul Fichtenbaum told the Wall Street Journal that SI didn't even sell ads around the one of the biggest sports stories of the year to keep the story from being leaked.
"The fact that we got the double of the newsbreak as well was like hitting the lottery," Stone told Deadspin.
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